The present invention relates to a fixing device for fixing a wire to a support member in which there is at least one opening.
The problem of fixing a wire to a support member often arises; for example, it arises when fixing a mesh structure made of wires welded together; one example of a mesh structure is a generally U-shaped cable duct which is made of longitudinal wires welded to transverse wires bent into a U shape; a cable duct is adapted to receive electrical, telephone or data cables, optical fibers, etc. This is known in the art.
The use of a fixing section having a plane surface adapted to receive the bottom of the cable duct and provided with lugs adapted to cooperate with the wires of the bottom of the cable duct to fix this kind of mesh structure has already been proposed, for example in the document FR-A-2 697 690.
According to that document, a sheetmetal fixing section has a plane surface on which rest longitudinal bottom wires of a cable duct of the kind shown in perspective in FIG. 4, which are welded to U-shaped transverse wires.
The plane surface of the section has at least two elongate openings in it in which lugs are formed by cutting and bending.
Before the fixing operation is performed, the lugs are conformed into a tongue that extends parallel to the plane surface of the section at a distance from that plane surface globally equal to the diameter of the longitudinal bottom wires.
To fix the cable duct, it is placed on the plane surface of the section and moved in translation so that the bottom wires engage under the tongues of the lugs up to the point at which they abut against the connection of each tongue to the plane surface of the section; the bottom wires repeat at predetermined intervals and the position of the lugs must of course correspond to those intervals.
To complete the fixing operation all that remains is to bend the tongues of the lugs toward the plane surface of the section and around the longitudinal bottom wires using any suitable tool, or preferably using a special tool such as the tool 100 shown in FIG. 6, which is marketed by the applicant.
The above arrangement is satisfactory for fixing a mesh structure, but has a number of drawbacks.
Firstly, the section with lugs matches only one particular type of wire mesh cable duct, with which it is designed to cooperate, the distance between the lugs having to correspond exactly to the distance between the longitudinal wires of the cable duct.
Secondly, the fixing sections must be perfectly aligned with each other if a sinuous route of the cable duct is to be avoided. Such alignment presupposes a similar alignment of the structures supporting the fixing sections, such as walls or posts, which cannot always be perfectly obtained.
A section with lugs is not suitable for fixing a structure which is not of the mesh kind, but of the globally solid kind; for example, U-shaped cross-section perforated sheetmetal cable ducts are known in the cable duct art; for these a section with no lugs is provided, having in a plane surface perforations with which openings in the bottom of the cable duct are aligned so that the cable duct can be fixed by means of nuts and bolts. The L-shaped section 11 shown in FIG. 1 is one example of a perforated section of this kind; it has a horizontal part 18 carrying a plane flange 12 and a vertical part 19 which is attached to a support member such as a wall 10; the plane top flange 12 incorporates perforations 13 which are preferably elongate to ensure that the perforations in the globally solid structure line up with them.
Thus two types of section are needed to fix a mesh structure and a globally solid structure.
An object of the present invention is to alleviate this drawback. It relates to a device for fixing a wire to a support member in which there is at least one opening, without lugs, so that a single type of support member can be used to fix at least one wire, such as longitudinal wires of a mesh structure, or a globally solid structure.
Another aim is for the wire fixing device to be suitable for more than one type of mesh structure with slightly different spacings of the longitudinal wires, of the order of a few millimeters at most.
Another aim is for the fixing device to accommodate imperfect alignment of the support members.
Another aim is for the fixing device to operate regardless of the position of the support member.
According to the invention, a fixing device which can be used to fix a wire to a support member having a plane flange in which there is at least one perforation is characterized in that it is made of sheetmetal and includes a globally plane baseplate from which emerges a lug adapted to be passed through said perforation and to engage over the wire.
The dimensions of the baseplate are such that it cannot pass through the opening or openings in the plane flange of the support member.
The lug advantageously includes a tongue parallel to the baseplate to which it is joined by a heelpiece and the tongue is at a distance from the baseplate globally equal to the diameter of the wire to be fixed plus the thickness of the plane flange of the support member.
The lug is preferably formed by the material originally occupying the cut-out in the baseplate; the cut-out is advantageously generally rectangular.
The tongue is preferably just above the cut-out that it overlies.
The edge of the cut-out facing the heelpiece of the lug and the edge of the baseplate near the heelpiece are preferably formed into inclined claws on the same side as the lug.
Alternatively, two facing edges of the cut-out carry inclined claws on the same side as the lug.
The baseplate preferably has two rims on the opposite side of the baseplate to the lug.
In a different embodiment of the invention the baseplate has two rims on the same side of the baseplate as the lug; said rims are preferably provided with claws.
In one particular application of the fixing device according to the invention the device is designed for fixing a mesh structure in the form of a cable duct.
The present invention also relates to a support system for a wire mesh cable duct consisting of the combination of at least one fixing device according to the invention and a support member in which there is at least one elongate perforation in a plane flange.
The support member is, for example, a section in the form of an angle-iron, an angle-bracket, a hanger, a swing-arm, etc. for fixing the cable duct to a vertical wall, to posts, or to a ceiling, using the bottom wires of the cable duct or the side wires.
The support member preferably has at least two perforations in it, there are preferably at least two associated fixing devices, and the perforations are preferably disposed on the flange of the support member to cooperate with different longitudinal wires of the cable duct.
In order to explain the subject matter of the invention, embodiments of the invention shown in the accompanying drawings by way of purely illustrative and non-limiting example will now be described.